……..The lifestyle audit of the top Government officials……..

Posted by Mungai on July 5th, 2018

…….The lifestyle audit of the top Government officials. It started off as off-cut remarks by President Kenyatta while on a working tour in Mombasa. While addressing a huge crowd of people he stated that the Government would initiate a lifestyle audit of its officials.

He said that as a measure that’s meant to contain the runaway corruption a lifestyle audit of government officials is necessary to check their wealth in total comparison with their income. He stressed that the lifestyle audit is a must to authenticate their wealth and those who can’t account their wealth will have them fortified.

He further stated that the lifestyle audit would start with him, followed by his Deputy, and, then other officials would follow.

But, that statement didn’t go down well in some political quarters as it has ruffled the political feathers in a wrong way. It has occasioned the political temperatures to skyrocket to the boiling point, thus precipitating a clash of opinions from the political leaders across the political divide. They have trivialised that issue which they have narrowed down to the succession politics of 2022.

That the Presidential statement has caused a rift and threatened to tear apart the Jubilee Government. The Deputy President ‘s wing of the Jubilee government is crying foul and are on a fighting alert voicing critic political statements to the effect that the President’s statement was a poisoned arrow which was directed to his Deputy.

And, they haven’t taken it lightly as they are reading a political sinister motive behind the lifestyle audit. To them, that statement on lifestyle audit was ironical loaded with heavy political undertones meant to undermine Deputy president and curtail his political ambitions of 2022.

They have been telling all and sundry that the lifestyle audit is a political scheme which is been floated by powerful forces within the Government who are out to sabotage Deputy president and stop him in his tracks and quash his quest for the Presidency.

They are saying that if the lifestyle audit will see the light of the day it will start from the era of the first President Jomo Kenyatta.

And, now they have managed to politicize the whole issue of lifestyle audit by their claims that their man is been targeted by the powerful forces. They have managed to whitewash a serious issue with positive ramifications of containing runaway corruption and whistled down to a case of a witch hunt.

Therefore, we can conclude that their opposition to the lifestyle audit is a strategy to sabotage the well-intentioned war on corruption. And, they have made the President’s remarks seem like just a political public relation gimmick.

According to one political commentator, while commenting on lifestyle audit, wrote in the Daily nation that politicians shouldn’t politicize the lifestyle audit as that only incriminates opposers. By framing the audit as a witch hunt they want to make it so politically tainted that it becomes impossible to fairly and objectively carry it out.

He further wrote that the hitherto soft murmurs, especially from a section of Rift valley Members of Parliament, have now become open grumbles with claims that the audit targets Deputy president Ruto with the aim of blocking his 2022 presidential bid. Never mind that the Deputy president has voiced his support for the president’s directive and publicly affirmed that he will submit to the audit.

He concluded that history has taught us that in Kenya, whenever you politicize an issue, especially by introducing the ethnic card, even the best intentions are doomed to fail. Lifestyle audit is used to determine if a person’s lifestyle is consistent with their known income. It would target their property, business interests, and credit history to look for a mismatch between one’s income and wealth status.

Organizations use it as a fraud detection and preventive tool. A sudden change in lifestyle could be indicative of fraud, or, illicit activities to generate wealth